


I Would Hurt a Fly

by fearsomecritter



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, POV Dana Scully, POV Jackson Van De Kamp, Slice of Life, canon compliant (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-04-19 22:26:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14247048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearsomecritter/pseuds/fearsomecritter
Summary: Pre-revival exploration of Jackson's life and connection to Scully.





	1. Chapter 1

_I can't get that sound you make_

_Out of my head_

_I can't even figure out what's making it_

_It feels like fingernails across the moon_

_Or do you rub your wings together?_

“I am not crazy.”

“I am not insane.”

“I am not psychotic,” he says.

~

Jackson follows the rhythm of her voice; he sees her silhouette, the bounce of red hair as she walks. He sees a man, tall and looming, behind her.

~

The Van De Kamps raise him for five years. Five golden, idyllic years. They fear God, clasp their hands in prayer every evening before supper. _You are a miracle child_ , they whisper in his ear. _You are a gift_. Then, when the seizures begin, when he talks of spaceships and little green men, he is in need of an exorcist.

~

His hair turns from copper to black; his eyes from blue to brown. Melanin trawls across his body. The doctors, of course, have no explanation. “Puberty changes everything,” they say. He does not quite believe them.

~

It is beside a playground in Norfolk that he first sees his sister. She is tall and slender, like a ballerina. Like him. _She was not meant to be_ , Ginger says, and he is there, in the hospital, his mind subsumed by her own. Anger and grief, the power to do nothing. _Would Emily have danced?_ he wonders. _Would she have loved me?_

~

He stoops beside a bench, head tilted up, toward the sullen architecture of the evergreens. He hears their rustling, feathers like silk, frantic energy.

“Mourning doves,” he murmurs.

~

Summer of 2010, a bridge and a fall, a broken leg, a hospital visit.  
He doesn’t organize formative timelines in his life through birthdays or new friends, holidays or vacations: he uses suicide attempts.

~

It is Monday, and wool eggs swim before his eyes. Meiosis and mitosis. Division, multiplication. He is not a star student; he is not the one teachers smile at as they pass back papers. The other kids do not speak to him, do not acknowledge his presence, do not let him join in all the reindeer games. He dreams in the daylight; he dreams of a shark and a man. He dreams of the both of them, all mixed up, all messed up. _You’re not meant to be_ , he thinks. And then he makes it so.


	2. Mr. Petersen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clozapine and alcohol, the outline of a gun against his waist.

The old man is behind Jackson, reeks of stale breath and cigarettes. His head, inches from his, whispering. _You must feel strange, these powers you have, these thoughts_. Jackson wants to punch him, call out for help, but he doesn’t. He leaves his room, he is somewhere else. He is with Ginger. He is safe.

It is Thursday, English class. He arrives early, sits alone in the room. Books and chairs, the cold comfort of silence. The others arrive in pairs, groups. There are words exchanged. _To Kill a Mockingbird and Animal Farm_ on his desk. “Why are you here so early?” a girl asks. He cannot bring himself to speak.

Their new English teacher. Short and slight, blond. “Mr. Petersen,” he tells them, “but call me James.” He is young, too young to risk acting casual, but does so anyway. Treats the children as colleagues, says the F word. Something is wrong, different about him. Jackson’s insides go cold when he calls on him. _Keep an eye on him_ , he tells himself. His insides rarely lie.

Clozapine and alcohol, the outline of a gun against his waist. Darkness closes in.

Jackson stays silent, absorbed. He reads page after page of _The Charlie Project_ , scrutinizes the faces of the lost, burns them into his skull. Maybe they will return, come back from that hollow place between life and death. _Someone has to remember them_. _Someone has to know their names_. Their fates consume him, unfold in his brain like silent vignettes. 

He thinks of a girl called Samantha, the night she disappeared from the suburbs of Massachusetts, never to be seen again. He thinks of her killers, how easily they lured her away. Scraps of patterned cloth beside a swing set. The only pieces of her that remain.

In his sleep, he visits Ginger.

She is working in that dreary hospital. Cold and blue, like the patients she treats. She is utterly consumed by the fates of the living, rather than the dead, he realizes. Lost souls in purgatory, children, all of them. A boy named Christian. A boy named William. So many boys…

He awakes at sunrise, the sheets cool and damp. His forehead is slick with perspiration.


	3. Soft Season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their house has become a narrow hallway, a winding stairwell, a den for a fox too wary to venture outside.

He runs from her, a little boy in green pajamas. Blue eyes and dark red hair, his father’s smile. She follows him; he turns to face her. Another boy stands in his place. No, not a boy---a young man.

Brown eyes, black hair, tall and gaunt. He flickers between the two.

_You are the same_ , she whispers.

“Dana,” Sandeep says, “you nodded off again.”

“I apologize. I haven’t been sleeping so well.”

Sandeep is so young, so enthusiastic and round-faced, like herself at that age. She can’t help but feel protective, obliged to shield her from the lifeless bureaucracy of the hospital.

They met a couple years ago, bonded over drinks. They talk about medical procedures and books, maintain a cautious friendship. It could deepen, Scully knows, but it won't.

The other staff remain distant, colleagues in the most frigid sense of the word. Gossip, tales about her personal life. She’s a spinster, a widower, a cautionary tale.

Sometimes, driving home alone in the dark, she thinks they aren’t wrong.

Unexpectedly, when she walks inside, Mulder greets her with a kiss, folds his arms around her, and she feels her body melt beneath his warmth. He still has that power, after all these years. _It’s distinctly unfair_ , she thinks.

Their house has become a narrow hallway, a winding stairwell, a den for a fox too wary to venture outside. She does not know how to help Mulder. He refuses medication, refuses therapy, refuses all that might mend him. She is tired of holding him up on feet that tremble under her own weight.

She can only give him her touch, her love, and hope it is enough.

_It wasn’t enough for William._


	4. Angels and Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No lasting harm, he tells himself, as he slips into the mask of another human being.

_Mr. Petersen. Mr Petersen. Mr. Petersen._

That is what is on Jackson’s mind as he walks down the street.

In the coffee shop, he checks his English teacher’s social media accounts, finds no sign of anything amiss. He has a daughter named Susan, a tabby cat and two dogs. All American, man. Nothing suspicious.

_There is another way_ , he thinks.

It’s not easy, it’s not ethical. But there is another way.

He can’t describe how he does it, how people around him cease to see their own reality, become immersed in whatever world he projects. But they do, and he uses it to his advantage. Of course he does: he is sixteen, and angry. But he doesn’t _hurt_ anyone. _No lasting harm_ , he tells himself, as he slips into the mask of another human being.

He follows Mr. Petersen, keeps his distance. To Mr. Petersen, to the world, he is firmly rooted in middle age. An unassuming old man with spectacles.

Niels, he calls himself, to anyone who asks. Niels Bohr—a scientist.

Jackson struggles with physics and chemistry, finds it difficult to decipher particles and electrons. But he has realized, numbly, that he loses himself to these people, that Jackson Van De Kamp fades away, and something else emerges. He has realized, too, that pieces of those other beings never leave him.


	5. Persephone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boy hasn’t visited in weeks.

_The terrible reunions in store for her_  
_will take up the rest of her life._

 

Scully seeks expiation; a chain breaks for every patient, every case, every hour she pours herself another cup of coffee. But she is not free. She is fifty, and tired.

The boy hasn’t visited in weeks. Thinking about her dreams, their meaning, frightens her. Mulder senses that something is amiss. He is an investigator, fine-tuned to her frequency. Of course he does. Loss of executive functioning, disorganization, poverty of speech. _You’re too old for schizophrenia_ , _Scully_ , he teases her, as if saying so will make all her problems fade away.

She says nothing. Images and sounds continue to scratch at her brain, clambering for release. _He will be here soon._

A boy in black, an intersection, a woman rolling from the impact of a blue vehicle. She tries to reach him, make sense of it all, but a barrier stands between them.

She could tell Mulder everything, let him absorb some of the impact. She has known him so long that they have become intertwined, like roots of neighboring trees. But she does not tell him about the boy.

Mulder takes the reins, in his own way, trying to extract her sickness. He asks her to take work off, travel with him, go to zoos and museums and parks. _Anything, anything at all_. She agrees.

They have watched a tiger swim laps in a concrete pool; they have walked five miles from North America to Africa. They have watched countless children, countless families, pass them by. They have mourned the loss of theirs. Otters glide through the water, Mulder’s hand finds her own, their fingers interlock. They stand, silent, and watch.

Scully does not flinch when a mother calls out for Emily. She wonders, momentarily, whether this is betrayal.

A sudden whirl of movement, Mulder ushering her towards the entrance, that firmness in his touch that she knows so well. He leads her away from Asia, and her daughter.

At the gift shop, he walks through aisle after aisle, holding her hand. They could be teenagers, young and so in love, tabula rasa. Bright, colorful walls lined with stuffed animals. He buys her a souvenir orangutan, says there’s an uncanny resemblance. She smiles. _We could be happy_ , she thinks, _if today lasted forever_.

She holds up the stuffed orangutan and reads the attached information slip.

_Orangutan mothers continue to support their young for up to eight years. With lifespan taken into account, this is almost the same proportion of time that an average woman spends raising her children!_


End file.
